Don B. Johnson: "I am
Sebastian, or Sebastian is I, or perhaps we are both someone neither of us
knows" ... In an idle moment it ocurred to me that the first syllable of
the name echoes the Russian pronoun SEBYA meaning "one's self ." ...I wonder if
this pseudo-etymology sheds any light on the novel.
Irina Marchesini: I would
suggest a very interesting article where G. Barabtarlo maintains
that: SEBASTIAN KNIGHT = KNIGHT IS ABSENT. Only one letter couldn’t be
included, and, interestingly, it corresponds to the indefinite article “a”. It
is then possible, in my opinion, to generalize the sentence, obtaining: A KNIGHT
IS ABSENT.
Victor Fet: "...And (this is for Alexey), Sebastian =
Sebiastan (The Country of Self" - if "sebia" is Russian "self" and "stan" is
Farsi for "country")"
Carolyn Kunin: S E B I A + S T A N K N I G H T. I don't see anything there
(too few vowels and not a dr or mr in sight), but perhaps Alexey will?
Alexey Sklyarenko: "The purpose
of my (or are they Nabokov's?) anagrams is to demonstrate how words can copulate
giving birth to new words and their combinations...copulation followed by
instant delivery (pregnancy is skipped) takes place in one's brain and gives one
tremendous intellectual pleasure. It is of a different order than sexual
(anagrams can be erotic, though) pleasure and is perhaps not as poignant, but it
can be greatly enhanced if one loves one's words and knows their past history.
Like writing, playing anagrams is a pleasant pastime (cf. Ada and Grace Erminin
playing anagrams at the picnic in Ardis the First: 1.13). I suspect that Ada is
not only a triple, but also anagramatic dream (cf. "Ben Sirine, the expounder of
anagrammatic dreams" mentioned in Ada: 2.2) and this only adds to the
pleasure."
JM: Sklyarenko stated his
purpose in applying (His? Sebastian's? Nabokov's?) anagrams, relating them
to the aesthetic thrills that can be derived from copulating words and
getting instant deliveries.
His project led me to Ferdinand Saussure's
seminal linguistic works and I extracted two quotes, from Wiki
sources: (a) "A linguistic system is a series of differences of sounds
combined with a series of differences of ideas." and (b) "The
connection between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary." I wonder
if Sklyarenko's pleasurable exercises are an extension ad absurdum
of these saussurean propositions?*
My own pleasures, related to Ada's or Ben
Sirine's wordgames, derives from how their author, Nabokov, uses analogies when
he writes. He doesn't merely describe a busfull of sitting
Japanese..."like a drawer full of flesh-colored rolled socks" (Murakami). He
transforms his analogies through a complex reference. In
"Ada" Uncle Dan doesn't simply travel thrice around the globe
moving from East to West, but he sets off in
a counter-Fogg direction. The chosen simile becomes much more than a
simple element for establishing the poetic comparison, it adds information (one
needs to remember Verne's book and, even, the hitch in its plot: it is important
to remember that the balloon arrives one day too early in London-time).
Nabokovian "analogic incrustations" (aren't
they?), represent a permanent source of pleasure for me,
just like Sklyarenko discovers it in the play with anagrams....
..............................................................................................................................................
* A friend called my attention, today, to a most
obvious fact, indicating that in "re-encarnation" there's no going backwards in
time ( it is mainly evolutionary). I
tried to play around and suggest that, for those who speak romance languages,
metempsychosis (like in Shade's fantasies of becoming a toad or a
flowerlet) would be easier, since only the word "carne" is employed -
with no distinction between "flesh" and "meat."
I had in mind that "meat" meant not
only the animal flesh used as food, but any flesh devoid of
a "soul." Obviously, I got nowhere - except perceiving that the
expression "you are dead meat" in English is not only redundant but
emminently cannibalistic in spirit (if I may say so).
How about that for desultory
postfacial ambles and rambles?